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Category Archives: E-Commerce

‘Too greedy’: mass walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

The Guardian: “Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the “greed” of publishing giant Elsevier. The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King’s College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges. Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing, which outstrip those made by Apple, Google and Amazon. Neuroimage, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging research, is one of many journals that are now “open access” rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall. But its charges to authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2,700 for a research paper to be published. The former editors say this is “unethical” and bears no relation to the costs involved. Professor Chris Chambers, head of brain stimulation at Cardiff University and one of the resigning team, said: “Elsevier preys on the academic community, claiming huge profits while adding little value to science.” He has urged fellow scientists to turn their backs on the Elsevier journal and submit papers to a nonprofit open-access journal which the team is setting up instead.

He told the Observer: “All Elsevier cares about is money and this will cost them a lot of money. They just got too greedy. The academic community can withdraw our consent to be exploited at any time. That time is now.”

Google promised to create a better, faster web for media companies

The Verge: “In 2015, Google hatched a plan to save the mobile web by effectively taking it over. And for a while, the media industry had practically no choice but to play along…Sites were too slow, too hard to use, too filled with ads. As a result, he warned, people were flocking to the better… Continue Reading

Mozilla acquires review-checking, scammer-spotting service Fakespot for Firefox

Ars Technica: “Fakespot, a useful service that explains how products you’ve never heard of could have 12,000 reviews with a 4.6-star average, has been acquired by Firefox-maker Mozilla, and Mozilla plans to integrate it into Firefox…After you install Fakespot’s extension for Chrome, Firefox, iOS, or Android, it changes the makeup of product pages on Amazon,… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 7, 2023

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 7, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the… Continue Reading

Google Announces 8 New Top Level Domains Including One For Lawyers

Search Engine Journal: “Google announced the release of eight new top level domains (TLDs), including one which may have a high commercial potential for law firms, others that are useful for academics and two top level domains that are based on file extensions, which might be problematic from a security standpoint..” Continue Reading

The Luring Test: AI and the engineering of consumer trust

FTC – Michael Atleson, Attorney, FTC Division of Advertising Practices: “In the 2014 movie Ex Machina, a robot manipulates someone into freeing it from its confines, resulting in the person being confined instead. The robot was designed to manipulate that person’s emotions, and, oops, that’s what it did. While the scenario is pure speculative fiction, companies… Continue Reading

Digital Privacy Legislation is Civil Rights Legislation

EFF: “As Congress ponders legislation to reform “big tech,” it must view comprehensive digital privacy legislation as desperately needed civil rights legislation, because data abuses often disproportionately harm communities already bearing the brunt of other inequalities. Harvesting and monetizing personal data whenever anyone uses social media or even vital online services has become ubiquitous, yet… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 15, 2023

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 15, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly… Continue Reading

Were you caught up in the latest data breach? Here’s how to tell

ZDNet: “Wondering if your information was posted online from a data breach? Here’s how to check if your accounts are at risk and what to do next…IBM estimates that the average cost of a data breach in 2022 for companies was $4.35 million, with 83% of organizations experiencing one or more security incidents. However, talk of… Continue Reading

Firefox rolls out Total Cookie Protection by default to more users worldwide

Mozilla Blog: “Take back your privacy – Firefox is rolling out Total Cookie Protection by default to more Firefox users worldwide, making Firefox the most private and secure major browser available across Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Total Cookie Protection is Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were… Continue Reading

Everything advertised on social media is overpriced junk

Schnadower Mustri, Eduardo and Adjerid, Idris and Acquisti, Alessandro, Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare: An Empirical Investigation (March 23, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4398428 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4398428 “The value that consumers derive from behavioral advertising has been more often posited than empirically demonstrated. The majority of empirical work on behavioral advertising has focused on estimating the… Continue Reading